Director Richard Linklater sits down to discuss his path from working on an oil rig to directing, why he considers the eighties to be an underrated cinematic decade, and how his Austin Film Society grew from a DIY labor of love into a cultural powerhouse.

Directed by Nico Papatakis • 1967 • Greece
Starring Olga Karlatos, George Dialegmenos, Lambros Tsagas

Nico Papatakis’s caustic political allegory—made in the wake of the 1967 Greek coup d’état that led to the establishment of a right-wing military junta—takes the form of a deliriously unhinged r...

Directed by Nagisa Oshima • 1971 • Japan
Starring Kenzo Kawarasaki, Atsuko Kaku, Atsuo Nakamura

One of the greatest and most subversive films by renegade director Nagisa Oshima launches a scathing attack on postwar Japanese society via a portrait of one family, the Sakurada clan, whose increasin...

Directed by Rainer Werner Fassbinder • 1978 • West Germany
Starring Volker Spengler, Ingrid Caven, Gottfried John

This heartrendingly compassionate tragedy from Rainer Werner Fassbinder traces the final days in the life of Elvira (Volker Spengler), a transgender woman spurned by her former lover...

Directed by Jean-Luc Godard • 1980 • France
Starring Isabelle Huppert, Jacques Dutronc, Nathalie Baye

After a decade in the wilds of avant-garde and early video experimentation, Jean-Luc Godard returned to commercial cinema with this star-driven work of social commentary, while remaining defiant...

Directed by François Truffaut • 1981 • France

A man and a woman living next door to each other become too neighborly, as an old flame reignites. Problem is they are now both married to other people. Past meets present and the heat becomes too much to handle.

Directed by Robert Bresson • 1983 • France, Switzerland
Starring Christian Patey, Vincent Risterucci, Caroline Lang

In his ruthlessly clear-eyed final film, French master Robert Bresson pushed his unique blend of spiritual rumination and formal rigor to a new level of astringency. Transposing a ...

Directed by Paul Schrader • 1985 • Japan, United States

Paul Schrader's visually stunning, collagelike portrait of acclaimed Japanese author and playwright Yukio Mishima (played by Ken Ogata) investigates the inner turmoil and contradictions of a man who attempted an impossible harmony between s...

Directed by Mike Leigh • 1988 • United Kingdom
Starring Phil Davis, Ruth Sheen, Edna Doré

True to its title, this slice-of-life satire is one of director Mike Leigh’s warmest and most optimistic films—though it’s still laced with more than a touch of bittersweet melancholy. Focusing on countercu...

Directed by Jonathan Demme • 2014 • United States
Starring Wallace Shawn, Julie Hagerty, Lisa Joyce

Twenty years after their brilliant cinema-theater experiment VANYA ON 42ND STREET, Wallace Shawn and André Gregory reunited to produce another idiosyncratic film version of a classic play, this t...